EU & Europe

ROME (IDN) – Has Turkey changed under Erdoğan? The question may seem absurd due to the habit of considering Turkey a secular and Westernised country before Recep Erdoğan came to power.

However, this consolidated image turns out to be false. There has been a change, but not in substance: what has changed is its exteriority. In fact, albeit with periodic recourse to elections, the country has always been governed in an authoritarian way, and today this feature is only more evident and its quality is more pronounced.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The seemingly eternal president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has an iron grip on his nation and a foreign policy to match. A large majority of Russians give him their support. He will win re-election.

Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability? Or the nation’s growing self-respect after the ignominious years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or is it a sense of besieged defensiveness because of the advantage the West took of Russia afterwards.

Somar Wijayadasa, a former UNESCO delegate to the UN General Assembly and Representative of UNAIDS at the United Nations, has been a frequent visitor to Russia since 1962 when the then Soviet Union "was a proud nation with a thriving economy, marvels of industrialization, advances in science, technology and medicine, escapades into outer space, and basking in the glory of a Super Power." – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN) – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is seeking re-election in the upcoming Presidential vote on March 18.

BERLIN (IDN) – The United Nations and the European Union as well as independent arms control experts have welcomed the results of latest talks between South and North Korea, and called for seizing the opportunities opening up for peace in the region and for reducing international tensions.

The significance of emerging prospects is underlined by the fact that though the Korean War ended in 1953, in the absence of a peace treaty the two Koreas are technically still at war. As The New York Times notes, in the United States where coverage of the armed conflict was censored and its memory decades later is often overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War has been called "the Forgotten War".

This is the second in a series of reports highlighting salient aspects of Transparency International's latest analysis on challenges posed by corruption around the world as well as successes and failures of efforts targeting a scourge that eats into the vitals of human rights. – The Editor.

LONDON (IDN) – When it comes to corruption, Western Europe is the world's best performing region while the Eastern and South-East Europe region is among the worst, according to the latest index from Transparency International (TI), the global anti-corruption coalition.

The group's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2017 released on February 21 shows that authoritarianism rose across the region in 2017, hindering anti-corruption efforts and threatening civil liberties, with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and independent media experiencing challenges in their ability to monitor and criticise decision-makers.

ROME (IDN) – It is not being dealt with by major media, but there appear to be new and dangerous winds of war about to blow in the eastern Mediterranean.

On October 15, 2016, in a speech at the university that (modestly) bears his name, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan outlined some lines of his new foreign policy, announcing the intention to regain territories lost by the Ottoman Empire following defeat in the First World War, with specific reference to Western Thrace and the Dodecanese, all areas belonging to Greece, in theory an ally of Turkey in NATO.

SDSN Switzerland was officially launched on February 15 with a conference under the banner 'Where Society, Science and Politics Create Solutions.' The network claims to have 19 members from key institutions around Switzerland who are committed to implementing SDGs at the local level.

BANGKOK (IDN) – While Sri Lanka "celebrates" 70 years of independence from British colonial rule this month, its sovereignty is being threatened as never before since gaining independence in 1948 – tempting one to remark that Sri Lanka is celebrating 'independence in chains'.

The strategically placed Indian ocean island is an important lynchpin in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which western powers – especially the United States and Britain – are keen to sabotage as its success would end their hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

Sri Lanka’s predicament started in early 2009 when the country’s armed forces were about to crush one of the most ruthless terror groups in the world – Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – “Are there bookshops in Nigeria?”, asked a French journalist of famous Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, igniting a firestorm on social media following an event in Paris on January 25.

Many outraged observers accused the journalist of racism and ignorance, while lauding Adichie’s response

“I think it reflects very poorly on French people that you have to ask this question. Come on, it’s 2018,” Adichie replied, after the journalist qualified her question by saying French people knew little about Nigeria, apart from hearing about Boko Haram and violence.

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The political situation around Eritrea is evolving rapidly, in both the Horn of Africa and Europe. Sudan has closed the border with Eritrea and deployed troops amid rising tensions while in the Netherlands, Eritrea’s top diplomat has been declared 'persona non grata' over the country’s practice of enforcing a so-called "diaspora tax" on expatriate Eritreans. Growing protests from the Eritrean diaspora, and even one protest inside of Eritrea, show that the pressure on the Eritrean government is mounting.

When Sudan closed its borders with Eritrea at the beginning of January, it initially announced that the border closing was aimed at stopping trafficking of people and goods. However, deteriorating relations seemed to be playing an equal role.